


Would You Know Me Now?

by calenlily



Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer (TV)
Genre: Addressing years of issues in a single conversation, Dialogue Heavy, F/M, Post-Episode: s04e22 Home, Post-Episode: s07e22 Chosen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-05-21
Updated: 2020-05-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:00:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,741
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24297013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calenlily/pseuds/calenlily
Summary: They call LA from the road, once they’re clear of the wreckage of Sunnydale, to pass on the message that the second front isn’t needed but a place to rest and regroup will be.The Hyperion welcomes them with open doors. Once the wounded have been tended to and she’s confident that everyone’s basically settled, Buffy goes looking for some quiet away from the chaos and soon finds herself in Angel’s suite. She doesn’t know whether it’s a blessing or a curse that every time they’re together it’s like the years just fall away, but it only feels natural that she ends up in his arms and telling him everything.(Set immediately afterChosen, not compliant with AtS s5)
Relationships: Angel/Buffy Summers
Comments: 5
Kudos: 28





	Would You Know Me Now?

**Author's Note:**

> Title comes from _Favorite Year_ by the Dixie Chicks, which ... just go listen to it, or at least look up the lyrics, because it is absolutely full of post-canon B/A feels.

They call LA from the road, once they’re clear of the wreckage of Sunnydale, to pass on the message that the second front isn’t needed but a place to rest and regroup will be.

The Hyperion welcomes them with open doors. Once the wounded have been tended to and she’s confident that everyone’s basically settled, Buffy goes looking for some quiet away from the chaos and soon finds herself in Angel’s suite. She doesn’t know whether it’s a blessing or a curse that every time they’re together it’s like the years just fall away, but it only feels natural that she ends up in his arms and telling him everything.

She’d been consumed with the question of “what next?” for the whole bus ride; they all had been, really. Buffy has enough experience with grief to know it will be hitting them in waves for some time to come, but once the initial shock of their losses was past, the survivors of Sunnydale were giddy with the relief of being alive. She’d mostly stayed out of the excited conversations that went back and forth above her head, engaging instead in private reflection and coming to some hard conclusions.

So once she’s finished giving Angel a brief recap of the battle, she steels herself to ask the question that’s been weighing on her mind since she started really thinking about her suddenly pathless future. “Any chance you’ve got room for a Slayer on your payroll?”

He raises an eyebrow. “ _A_ Slayer? Last I looked, you come with a bit of an entourage.”

There’s a flash of trepidation in his eyes, though he hides it quickly. He’d let the whole pack of them stay if she asked it of him, she realizes, much as he would hate it. Momentarily she toys with the idea of playing out the notion, just to see his reaction, but she doesn’t have the heart to pretend right now. “Just lil’ me. If you’ll have me. The gang are planning to re-establish the Watcher’s Council - in a less overbearing manner than the old Council, naturally, but we need a resource base for all the new Slayers. They’ll be moving on soon.”

“Without you?” He pulls her closer against his side. “Of course I’d be glad to have you, Buffy, but – _why_?”

“I can’t stay. They kicked me out of my own house, Angel. I made one mistake too many and they relieved me of command, put _Faith_ of all people in charge and told me I wasn’t welcome anymore. Then they came crawling back when she led the girls into a trap and I had to save their asses. It all got swept under the rug because of the crisis, just like it does every time, but I can’t pretend everything’s okay anymore.” She shrugs her shoulders, and adds with an attempt at levity, “Besides, the gang’s talking about setting up shop in London, or maybe Cleveland, and either way that sounds like entirely too much cold for this California girl.”

“So you want to stay here?” Angel looks uncertain. “What happened to, ah, baking? In Sunnydale you told me rather emphatically to stay out of your kitchen. I want to respect that, but I don’t know how to be around you without wanting you.”

Buffy colors at the allusion to her unfortunate metaphor. “I need time and space to find myself, I wasn’t kidding about that – if anything, it’s even more important now. I need to figure out who Buffy is, apart from the Hellmouth and one girl in all the world. And I’m prepared to go off on my own if that’s what it takes ... but I was kinda hoping that maybe I wouldn’t have to.” She looks down, absently fidgeting with her necklace. “See, Faith and I had a good talk, before everything went down. We’re ... well, five by five, I guess. I doubt we’ll ever be painting each other’s toenails besties, but she turned out to not suck to have around. Anyway, we were talking about how lonely it is at the top. I’ve been alone a long time now. I’d rather not keep on that way if I have the choice.” She takes a deep breath, then goes on in a rush, needing to get the words out before she loses her nerve. “And I know I said years if ever, but things have changed. Before the battle, I could hardly imagine we were going to survive to see the other side, let alone that I was going to have a future free of the burden of the Hellmouth or of being the one Chosen. My world is a very different place than it was yesterday, and the one thing I know is I want you in it.”

“Are you sure?” He gives her a long searching look. “Without those responsibilities, you could be free to have a normal life.”

Buffy laughs, slightly hysterically. “I’m not sixteen anymore. I stopped kicking and screaming about the unfairness of destiny years ago. Maybe I wistfully wonder sometimes about who I might have been if I’d never been called, but that’s entirely idle dreaming; I couldn’t live that life now if I tried. Being the Slayer has shaped me in more ways than I can count. It’s who I am, and I’ve made my peace with that.”

Angel looks disbelieving still. “You said so many times that being normal was your dream.”

“Only for lack of a better word,” Buffy attempts to explain. “I don’t want to be Kendra; I can’t live for sacred duty alone. I want a chance to live in this world I protect from time to time, and I wish Murphy’s Law wasn’t quite so insistent on crashing my every life milestone and special occasion, but anything that fits me is never going to be anyone’s definition of normal. When I say I still want a life beyond being a Slayer, I’m talking about a life that has room for the people I love, for dancing and shopping and laughing over terrible Indian movies. It doesn’t mean sunshine and picnics and white picket fences! It doesn’t mean I want to constantly exhaust myself working some mundane dead-end job or trying to keep up with classes by day on top of hunting by night. I’m through twisting myself into a pretzel trying to be someone I’m not. It’s a good fight, and I’m not ready to give it up. What I need is someone who can understand that I’m as much a creature of the night as the things I fight, who can accept my strength and my darkness and the predator in me without making me feel like a freak for it.”

“You really want to stay. With me?”

“I really do.”

He sighs heavily. “There’s a ... complication.”

“How so?” Buffy asks warily. This is it, she thinks, attempting to brace herself for rejection, and wonders what his justification for pushing her away will be this time.

He looks away, avoiding her eyes. “Angel Investigations doesn’t exactly exist anymore. I may have made a deal with the devil. That extremely unreliable source the amulet and the folder came from? Wolfram and Hart. We killed a higher power who was turning everyone into drones with no free will, and they declared we’d ended world peace and offered us – offered me – control of their LA branch.”

“And you _took_ it?” Buffy explodes off his lap to pace the room angrily. “What the hell possessed you? Not for the amulet and the folder, I hope.”

“No. Those were among the things they tried to tempt me with, but just a bonus in the grand scheme of things. I would’ve trusted you to handle things yourself.”

Slightly mollified, Buffy comes back to sit on the edge of the bed. Angel is silent for a long minute, his expression heavily clouded; she takes his hand.

At length he goes on, “It’s a long story, but suffice to say it was the only way to save someone I love, and time was short. What would you be willing to do, if you had no other way to protect Dawn?”

She pushes back the flare of jealousy that accompanies the thought of who he could have cared about so much that he was willing to make this devil’s bargain for them. “I’m going to want to hear this long story in full when there’s time,” she says sharply. “But I think I can kind of understand.”

“I know it’s a trap; I’m walking into it with my eyes open. But I have to believe I can do some real good from the belly of the beast.”

“Let me guess, this is the part where you tell me you want me out of it.” She doesn’t try to hide the resignation in her voice.

“I don’t like the thought of you anywhere near that pit of vipers, Buffy, I won’t pretend otherwise. But I won’t make that decision for you.”

“Wow, you’re actually learning.”

“Buffy....”

She regrets her sniping remark at the hurt in his eyes. “I’m sorry, that was uncalled for. But you have to admit, your track record in trusting me to make my own decisions is less than stellar.”

Angel neither tries to justify nor apologize for his past actions, just says humbly, “I know.”

Her heart softens a little more. “Good,” she declares, “because I think you might need me with you. I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but that place will swallow you whole if given half a chance. I haven’t forgotten when you told me about nearly losing your way two years ago, the whole thing with Darla. I think you’re going to need the reminder of what you’re fighting for.”

She watches gratitude and worry war across his features. “You would do that for me?” he finally asks.

“Shoulder to shoulder, I’m yours,” she says. It’s a different kind of battle, but it’s been too long since she’s fought at his side. She’s rather looking forward to it.

“Mine.” His lips curve up in that half-smile he’s always had just for her, and there’s a husky note to his voice. “I like the sound of that.”

“I always have been, you know. Heart and soul, I belong to you; no one else has ever begun to compare.” She swallows heavily, reluctant to break the warmth of the moment with another heavy topic, but she needs him to know just how much she is putting on the line. “Every time you’ve come back into my life and started acting all jealous and possessive, I can’t help hoping you’re actually going to claim me this time. And every time you don’t, it breaks my heart all over again. And every time I wonder why I’m so foolish as to keep hoping, and how many times I’m going to let you do this to me. If insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then loving you is the craziest thing I’ve ever done, because you’ve torn my heart out at least once a year since I was sixteen and I still can’t stop.”

“I’m so sorry.” His eyes are filled with pain and guilt, and she feels like cursing. She wants to make him understand, not to send him into another brooding session. “I never wanted to hurt you but I can’t seem to do anything but.”

“I’m not looking for apologies, Angel,” she cuts him off sharply. “What I need is to know if this is for real, if you’re actually claiming me now. I’m yours if you want me, but if you’re going to reconsider as soon as you have a few quiet hours to talk yourself out of it I need to know now because I can’t keep putting my heart out to be crushed.”

He tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear before pulling her into his arms again. “I’m yours,” he says, regarding her intently. He kisses her and it’s a declaration and a promise.

When the kiss breaks, he leans his forehead against hers, and she is nearly overwhelmed by the depth of emotion in his eyes. She tilts her head to meet his lips again, because that taste of him has only whetted her appetite.

A moment later they are kissing the way they haven’t in four years, possessive and passionate and unrestrained, and she is straddling his lap and his hands are up under her shirt and all she wants to do is lose herself in him but in a moment of clarity she processes their positions and the fact that they were foolish enough to have this conversation sitting on his bed and she recognizes the danger. She pulls away before she loses the will to. She’s still confident that it’s all worth it, but oh god, this is going to be senior year all over again, only worse if anything.

“I’m sorry,” Buffy gasps. “I wasn’t thinking – we shouldn’t – the curse....”

“Is no longer an issue.” Before she can ask, Angel elaborates, “When I made my deal, I did my best to ensure the price was worthwhile; I may have sold my soul, but I won’t lose it again. Though I’m not sure I’m even capable of perfect happiness any more, anyway.”

“You might have mentioned that!”

He sighs. “I was planning to. But when you were jumping down my throat for daring to care about your relationship status, it really didn’t seem like a good time.”

Buffy winces. “I’m sorry. I was a bitca back there in the graveyard.”

“You were scared,” Angel says. There’s no judgment in his voice, only understanding.

“I was terrified,” she agrees. “I’ve spent months getting my friends hurt and girls under my protection killed, wondering who was going to be next and bracing myself for the worst, and then suddenly you were there and all I could think was I couldn’t stand to have you in harm’s way too. And then you went all territorial and jealous over Spike and it felt so petty and inconsequential in light of everything that I kinda leaned towards the postal.”

Speaking that name seems to release the floodgates on the torrent of emotion she’s been holding back. “Oh God, _Spike_. He sacrificed himself, you know, burned to save us all.” She buries her face in Angel’s chest, on the verge of tears as it hits her. “I don’t risk the people I love. Sending you to hell nearly killed me, and I promised I’d never let myself be put in that position again. I couldn’t sacrifice Willow to stop the mayor’s Ascension, I couldn’t let you die when Faith poisoned you, and I gave my life so Dawn wouldn’t. But I let Spike have the amulet without hardly fighting him on it. I can kid myself all I like that he needed the chance to prove himself and that he wouldn’t have taken no for an answer, but the truth is I let him do it. And I feel guilty that I don’t feel guiltier about it. I know you don’t – didn’t – like him–”

“That’s an understatement,” Angel mutters, but otherwise holds his peace.

“But he was there for me when no one else was, and he understood me in a way very few people ever have. I cared deeply for him and I might have loved him in a way. But I wasn’t in love with him, and he knew it better than I did. Sometimes I wonder if he was ever anything more than a poor substitute.”

“I still say you deserved better.”

Buffy glares. “You _don’t_ get to tell me what I deserve, Angel. You seem to care more about that than what I want, and anyway I don’t think there’s a guy in existence who meets your standards for me. The fact is, everyone I love leaves me.” She sees his wince but goes on ruthlessly. “Whatever else can be said about Spike, I know that if I’d let him, he would have held onto me and never let go. And I was still trying to figure out if that was something I even wanted from him. But with the life I’ve led, that’s a hard thing to pass up.”

Angel clutches her tightly. “You are mine,” he pronounces. “I’m not letting you go again.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

**Author's Note:**

> I’m interested to explore more of this possible future, because obviously there’s a lot still to be worked out, but this scene is all the inspiration I’ve got so far. So this may or may not be continued, we shall see....


End file.
